Zero-K v1.0.4.0

Somehow quite a few changes made it into this version. The new flow field style pathing has been enabled for almost all units (even enemy units) to see if it is an improvement. An across the board 1/6th build power reduction is now being tested. Gravity gun behaviour should be a lot more consistent. In more mundane balance Bandit has had a small nerf and Djinn is significantly cheaper.

Balance

Bandit:

• DPS reduced by 5%.
• Removed autoheal.

Djinn:

• Cost 1800 -> 800
• Speed 1.2 -> 1.4

As an experimental change all build powers were reduced by 1/6th. Repair, reclaim, resurrect and construction effectively takes 20% longer.

Gravity gun and Water Cannon power increased by an unknown factor.

Gravity Guns

Replaced the purely engine dependant implementation of gravity beams with a gadget.

• Impulse is a lot more predictable and balancable.
• Planes, Ships and Gunships are now significantly affected by gravity guns.

Known impulse capacitors have been removed. But do not despair that unit launching is now impossible, the partial rewrite has dramatically increased the predictability and power of 'legitimate' unit cannons.

Unit collision damage has been partially reinstated for units with high speed. The high speed cutoff is required to prevent collision damage during normal movement. A fast unit is damaged as if it hit the ground with that speed, the collidee is not damaged.

Pathing

Most push resistance was removed as an experiment to see if pathfinding will improve.

• Enemy units can be shunted and flowed past in the same manner as allied units.
• Crabe is the only push resistant unit. As it cannot be shunted around.

Disabled push resistance works fairly well in this version. In previous versions, packing units into a tight area was arming the mouse traps in a demonstration of fission. A little bump would cause a unit to wander 100s of elmos off it's position which would really screw up things like cloaker and mine placement.

With this engine version, instead of moving around units merely float about when pushed. This means a well placed shield or cloaker will not be affected too much. Cloaked units such as Flea, Roach and Tick will stay cloaked while pushed. Pillager and Slasher seem to be able to fire.

Removed some Stealth/Cloak ambiguity

The obscure ability of Spy and Skuttle to stealth while uncloaked has been removed. This was inconsistent with other cloaked units and completely undocumented.

Fixes

• Tweaked some cloakybot tracks to better fit their feet base.
• Fixed Urchin gun position when placed in very shallow water.
• Removed occasional console output about pylons.
• Puppy no longer gathers wreckage while stunned or under construction.
• Transport impulse capacitor.
• Nanoframe impulse capacitor.
• Bantha missile now has a reasonable size. The triple missile pack is probably going to be fireable with a manual weapon of some sort.
• Fixed some unit tip misspellings.

I get the distinct, slightly egocentric feeling a lot of these changes are to do with me.

TELL ME WHY!!! *sob*

jseah: http://code.google.com/p/zero-k/issues/detail?id=1251

Just click the "Star" next to the title of the bug

* Issue 1251: Missile tower starts as "hold fire"?

When you "star" something, it will send you an email anytime there is update.

Get some people to play on the Zero-K test version server for a few games, and establish that it is stable.

We had it in a previous stable version, and it had to be reverted due to a few serious problems like holdfire defenders. So best to just determine that it is working fully and doesn't have any show-stoppers like that.

HAHAH, I warned you. ;)

Last time it was not just defenders but other aa as well. Defenders are just the most common AA. That is likely why it shows up there first.

I am loving the gunship/newton interaction. It is hilarious.

VERSION(v1.0.4.1}

Fall Damage, both units are now damaged when they collide with each other. The
damage done to both units is the same. Damage is proportional to the damage the
lighter unit would have taken if it hit the ground with speed equal to the sum
of both unit's velocity. This is then multiplied by 0.8 (otherwise
launching is a bit crazy-good).

Disabled afk take lineage for all units except factories. As in units that a
taker creates while the afker is afk will not be given to the afker upon his
return. For example if someone drops from the start they will only receive their
commander and any factories the commander built upon returning.

Fixed gravity gun ineffectiveness vs heavy units.
Fixed tooltips for BP change.

Added Jugglenaut mass pickup and throw special weapon.

Disabled AA Micro, profiler tests too high. Will test more thoroughly later. When idle with about 30 AA structures gadget profiler said around 2% of fps, other gadgets (even massive ones) rarely breach 0.5%. When testing 30 cir vs 30 hurc it went as high as 14%.